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Roblox VS Fortnite: Which one holds more brand potential?

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Oct 5, 2023

Let's review the peculiarities of each platform

The Metaverse, a digital frontier where creativity and interaction know no bounds, is reshaping the business landscape. At the forefront of this transformation are two giants: Fortnite and Roblox.

Both platforms have captivated millions of users and offering exciting opportunities for businesses seeking to tap into this evolving virtual realm. But when it comes to choosing the right field for your brand, which one should you opt for? In this blog, we’ll explore and compare Fortnite and Roblox from a business perspective.

Introduction

After the initial rush the web3 development took on launching platforms, initiatives and social points that were aiming to change the way we connect and engage with each other, companies like Roblox, which has been around for over 10 years; and Fortnite, which has been dynamically adapting to the trends; emerged as two attractive platforms where brands and companies could deploy content and reach to new audiences.

These two giants are currently in a battle to engage with the maximum number of users, make their content accessible from anywhere (both are playable on PC, console and mobile), and enhance community creation tools to make sure the machine of creating experiences and engaging content never stops.

We’ve been there, and we’ve had the same questions: Where do we start? How does it fit our product and vision? How will users learn about it? Along this article we aim to address these common doubts we found during the process of developing experiences for both platforms, Roblox and Fortnite.

Fortnite: continuous evolution

What began as the “Minecraft killer” moved into the “PUBG killer” and now aims to be the “Roblox killer” with UEFN, all of this happening while killing its own initial concept during the process.

Fortnite was launched to the world in 2012, but it experienced several delays before Epic Games opted for an early-access approach. Development progressed slowly and Unreal Engine 4 was still a newborn engine with tons of issues and limited advancements. Epic Games wanted to make their engine more attractive to a wider developer audience and compete with Unity for market share.

During this paid early access period, Fortnite underwent several reworks, idea shifts and changes in visual direction including a rebranding. As survival sandbox games were dying and massive multiplayer games gained traction Epic Games made the strategic decision to pivot the development and explore how battle royale version of Fortnite could fit and showcase the power of the engine. This marked the birth of Fortnite as we know it today.

Years of trends and engine upgrades have led to what we can now call the king of games as a service.  Fortnite thrived in terms of users but lacked community-made content, much like what Valve had with its Counter-Strike community and what Roblox was already known for.

Today, Fortnite has changed from being just a game into an ecosystem of user-generated and playable content. You get the base of a game that is replayable, competitive and features clearly define user progression. Mixed with a set of tools released in 2023 it allows you to get almost the same power as an Epic Games developer when building the game. With UEFN, community-generated content is blooming and the possibilities are vast, although somewhat limited (for now).

The UEFN initiative was built on top of the game, so the developer doesn’t engage directly with the core Unreal Engine 5. Instead, you receive a framework and coding language that enables you to work with the surface level of the engine and create custom maps, modes and introduce elements from outside the game (for example, your headquarters).

The available options are already quite diverse but with their promising roadmap it appears that users and developers will eventually have a fully functional sub-engine within the game.

In terms of environment and experience, we find Fortnite to be very promising. However, some features in the engine remain locked. For example developers cannot access the marketplace, and the content created is currently considered a side game rather than the main focus (for now).

Roblox: a bubble full of opportunities

Roblox has been around for more than 15 years now; it’s older than Fortnite and has always had the approach og being a casual social point. They have their own engine called Roblox Studio which comes with a complete suite of tools that allows a developer to create anything that is on their mind and have it immediately released to the public.

For over a decade that have been building what is now the behemoth of viral content and a meme generator for the new generations. Roblox began to thrive with significant exposure when it came a meme on TikTok and other platforms, showcasing absurd situations and boosts like parodies from TV shows and films.

In contrast to Fortnite, Roblox features an open marketplace fully of community creations that range from the creative to the simple and from the original to the branded. The community has established an internal marketplace that operates on the Robux currency and it thrives. This profitability allows top creators to earn income and continue producing content on the platform.

Those who are part of the UGC program take full advantage of the features while those who are not can still create tons of content for millions of users. Roblox has positioned itself as a top social app that targets young audience encouraging them to connect and have fun together.

Both are great but, what are they different then?

Event though both platforms have millions of daily users they have some critical differences when it comes to end-user features and developer utilities. Let’s explore these differences!

End user comparison

What’s different on the end user side?

Target audience

  • Roblox

Roblox has a younger audience, mainly targeted to people from 8 to 17 and several reports state that even kids of 6 years play.

  • Fortnite

Fortnite has an older target audience, composed mainly of teens and young adults. This is mainly due to the fact that Fortnite has more advanced controls and mechanics.

Main purpose

  • Roblox

Roblox has a very strong emphasis on social gathering and having an overall simple and friendly experience. It has a for fun social spirit.

  • Fortnite

UEFN and the community content inherits all the mechanics of a First Person Shooter and also all the base gameplay the game has in all the community content. It has a competitive spirit.

Types of gameplay

  • Roblox

Roblox allows users to build virtually anything so you can expect from Treasure Hunts to Fighting Arenas, Adventures and Shooting games from different types and goals.

  • Fortnite

Fortnite offers a wide range of experiences that either are multiplayer, solo, limited to a certain amount of players and teams… But always within the boundaries that UEFN allows you and with the components from Fortnite.

Devices

  • Roblox

Roblox can be accessed from PC, Mobile, Consoles and VR.

  • Fortnite

Fortnite can be accessed from PC, Mobile, Consoles and Cloud.

Bundle Size

  • Roblox

Roblox only sizes 10mb in pc! Making it incredibly lightweight and accessible for even potato computers. On average is recommended that your computer has 1GB space free and also has some basic RAM settings. It’s also available for Mobile and Console with a discrete bundle size.

  • Fortnite

Fortnite requires around 50gb to have the base game running and around 15gb extra for the UEFN. It also requires a better end-PC but it runs perfectly optimized on Console and Mobile.

Developer Comparison

How developers are impacted by each platform?

Engine

  • Roblox

Roblox uses a proprietary engine, called Roblox Studio, which offers a complete development suite for developers. They have their own pipeline and their own custom rules to create content.

  • Fortnite

Fortnite runs on Unreal 5, making it extremely powerful through their UEFN editor. The engine is well established in the industry and it’s familiar to most developers.

Visuals

  • Roblox

It’s lightweight, more “basic” at the beginning but also more flexible from the start. Developers can freely set art directions and introduce enhancements through the engine.

  • Fortnite

UEFN offers out of the box enhancements and setups, making it very easy to make a stunning environment with Fortnite’s art direction. Creating custom objects also takes advantage from being very similar to standard Unreal development.

Editor

  • Roblox

With time Roblox has established their own editor pipeline that is way different to Unity’s and Unreal’s way of understanding entities and handling components in the scene.

  • Fortnite

The game uses an extension called UEFN to create content on top of the game base, it’s based on the Unreal Engine pipeline so any developer familiar with the engine is automatically familiar with UEFN.

Language

  • Roblox

Lua is the language of choice for Roblox development, making the adoption on the engine language very easy as Lua is a widely supported.

  • Fortnite

UEFN uses a middle-ground language called Verse, which is neither C++ (Unreal), C# (Unity) nor Lua (Roblox) but a mix of different concepts for the coding structure. It aims to be compatible cross engine and has in mind to be as effective as the rest of languages.

Marketplace

  • Roblox

Roblox has a gated but open marketplace for creators, only requiring to apply and be accepted in the UGC to put their creations to sale. This makes the developers a way to get revenue through items and objects that are purchased with Robux.

  • Fortnite

Fortnite doesn’t have an open market and currently is closed to exclusive Epic Games’ partners that work directly with them and have content to be sold in the Fortnite marketplace. This makes it very difficult for users to sell content as you can’t make and sell custom skins, characters or items using V-Bucks.t

Here, as a summary, is a table comparing the specifications of Roblox and Fortnite:

I’m not a builder at all

Don’t worry, we can cover you. Book a call anytime you feel so and let’s discuss your idea and how it can come to reality with us!

Where do I start?

Fortnite appeals more to me

Start building right away and create amazing stuff on Fortnite by getting it on the Epic Games Store.

Roblox is interesting, let’s go

Start building anything you imagine in Roblox with their software suite.

Choose your fighter

This decade is shaping up to be a fierce battle for users, resources and community engagement on a global scale between Roblox and Fortnite. The latter is younger but features a team with a strong background in game engines while Roblox offers the most accessible tools.

We have already explored and experimented with both platforms and have found them to be excellent each with its strengths and weaknesses. Both are solid products that can empower individuals to leap forward and create content. They both represent the digitalization of society and we can anticipate more brands joining in as a new means of accessing mass audiences.

Business
Fortnite
Roblox
Kourtin
Head of OPS

I purr when you're not looking. I'm passionate about environments and all the techie stuff to make them look rad. Learning and improving everyday to be a better hooman.

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